


Ships Passing in the Night

by osprey_archer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Identity Issues, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: Hydra releases the Winter Soldier for the Battle of New York. Steve Rogers is 100% thrilled to meet a fellow frozen World War II soldier, even if he was a Soviet.





	Ships Passing in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [razzleydazzley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/razzleydazzley/gifts).



“Defrost the asset.”

“But sir – ” The technician quails when Pierce looked at him sharply. “Captain America’s out there, sir. What if he…?”

“We need to throw everything we’ve got at these Chitauri,” Pierce explains. “If they take over the Earth, all our plans will be meaningless. And if Captain America recognizes the asset…” He shrugs. “We’ll think of a cover story. Defrost him!” 

***

The Chitauri have Steve and Natasha pinned down. There’s a slag heap of busted cars behind them, and an onrushing wall of Chitauri closing in. They’re both crouched behind Steve’s shields while Natasha takes potshots but this is it, the end, and it doesn’t matter too much for Steve because he’s supposed to be dead anyway, but it’s too bad he can’t save Natasha… 

And then a miracle occurs. An arc of fire shoots from above them, arcing over Steve and Natasha’s heads and slamming into the Chitauri. The fire moves almost lazily, like someone playing a garden hose along the neatly ranked plants in a vegetable garden, and the Chitauri wither into cinders. 

Steve and Natasha both whip around. Their savior is standing on top of a car, an angel dressed in black, with a shiny metal arm and a massive gun resting casually against his hip. 

“ _Kak tebya zovut_?” Natasha asks. Steve glances over at her. She’s staring at the man like she’s seen a ghost. 

“ _Zimnii soldat._ ”

Natasha looks at Steve, and her eyes are still big. “He’s the Winter Soldier,” she says, and then her eyes sharpen up again and she shoots a Chitauri over Steve’s shoulder. Steve hurls his shield over her head to mow down three more while they clamber over a tipped-over bus, and this Winter Soldier character lifts up his – _flame thrower_ , he has a fucking flame thrower – and casually scorches a Chitauri aircraft out of the sky. With his other hand, he chucks a knife sideways. He doesn’t even look. The knife slices a Chitauri head off. 

Natasha got a gun in each hand now, shooting alternatively on each side. She shouts something in Russian. The Winter Soldier nods, almost lazy, and jumps down off his car, and disappears into the dust. 

“Who the hell was that?” Steve calls. He leaps over to Natasha just in time to lift his shield above their heads like an umbrella as Chitauri weaponry rains down. 

“The Winter Soldier!” Natasha says again, in a tone of amazement like Steve might use if a comic book hero showed up to help. _That’s Superman!_

A car flips over and explodes and they’ve got to run for it. Steve boomerangs his shield down an alleyway to mow down a few Chitauri and they sprint after it down the cleared path. “Who’s the Winter Soldier?” Steve calls. 

“He’s assassinated over two dozen people in the last fifty years!” Natasha shouts. “He shot _me_ once.” She sounds admiring. 

“He doesn’t look fifty years old!” Steve shouts back.

“Word on the street,” says Natasha – they slide under a crashed Chitauri craft and come out running on the other side – “is that he’s a Stalingrad soldier the Soviets kept on ice after World War II.” 

“World War II?” Steve croaks.

Natasha doesn’t get a chance to answer. A Chitauri fighter swoops down at them, and she yells, “Boost me up!” 

She vaults right off his shield onto the fighter, neat as anything. It’s the kind of move Peggy would’ve made, if there had been flyers like that back in World War II…

World War II. World War II. _There’s another frozen World War II soldier_. 

Steve has to dive to the ground to avoid being strafed. He rolls over to safety and slings his shield after the fighter, and brings it down on the empty street. Then he’s pelting toward Stark Tower again. 

He’s got to focus on the battle now. He puts the thought of the Winter Soldier away for later. 

Something to look forward to. 

***

The battle keeps Steve so busy that he nearly forgets the Winter Soldier. But soon enough it’s all over, the Chitauri are gone and Loki’s pinned down, and Tony asking them all, “Have you ever tried shawarma?” 

And Steve turns around and there’s the Winter Soldier, hanging out in the background. Now that the battle’s over, the casual grace is gone. He’s taken off his goggles, and the impression they’ve left on the skin around his eyes give him a softer look. He’s holding his big gun kind of like how a lost kid would hold a teddy bear. 

The guy’s lost in a new century, just like Steve is. And in a new country too. And he hasn’t gotten the chance to meet the other Avengers yet, even though he saved the world just as much as any of them.

Steve gives him a smile and goes over. He always tried to welcome new recruits to the Howling Commandos. “We’re getting shawarma,” he says, and hopes he’s saying it right, and wonders what the hell it is. “Wanna come?” 

The Winter Soldier doesn’t answer. He probably doesn’t speak English. Steve feels like an idiot for not thinking of that. He’ll just grab Natasha, and…

“I can’t.”

Steve was looking for Natasha, but he turns back sharply at the sound of the Winter Soldier’s voice. It sounds rough and strange, like maybe that gas mask thing he’s wearing is muffling it. 

The Winter Soldier taps the gas mask with one finger, as if to explain. It’s not a gas mask after all, then, but – maybe some kind of prosthetic? Maybe his jaw got shot off or something. 

“Wanna get a milkshake?” Steve asks. He feels a little desperate. The only other frozen World War II soldier on the whole planet and he wants nothing more than to slip away, Steve can see it. “I mean – if you can drink a milkshake…”

If the Winter Soldier’s smiling, Steve can’t see it, but the corners of his eyes crinkle, and that restlessness leaves him. He nods. His long hair flops in his face. 

Steve wonders if this is a Russian thing: Natasha wears her hair loose when she fights too. Steve thinks it’s dangerous, but it can’t be denied that they both look amazing. 

So Steve and the Winter Soldier break off from the rest of the Avengers. He tries to catch Natasha’s eye, but she’s got her arm through Clint’s, and Steve decides Clint probably needs her more, anyway. 

And Steve’s not sorry to have his World War II buddy all to himself, anyway. 

The streets are covered in broken glass. It crunches beneath their boots like a fresh snowfall. The stoplights still hang above the rubble-covered streets, still carrying out their appointed rounds, green and yellow and red. 

“I’ve seen you before,” the Winter Soldier says suddenly. He’s got less of a Russian accent than Steve would have expected. 

“Maybe the newsreels?” Steve suggests. Maybe some of the Captain America newsreels made it to the Soviet Union.

But the Winter Soldier shakes his head. His eyebrows have drawn together, like he’s trying to remember. 

There are a few people emerging from the buildings. A little girl runs up to Steve and hugs him around the waist, and her mother – tired, dust-streaked, walking on a broken high heel – smiles and takes their picture with one of those intimidating flat phones. 

“Do you know where we might find a milkshake, ma’am?” Steve asks. (He feels ridiculous when he hears himself talking like this, like the white hat in a Western, but it seems better to err on the side of too polite.) 

“Yes!” she nearly shouts, and Steve’s glad he asked. She looks delighted to be able to help. “Just around the corner. DeStasio’s is great… if it’s still there…” 

DeStasio’s is still there. It’s got one of those endless menus that Steve finds so intimidating (ice cream flavors scare him more than an alien invasion. What is wrong with him?), but fortunately he spots vanilla near the top and that’s what he gets. “The same,” says the Winter Soldier. 

Steve fumbles for his credit card (he feels weird paying with it: he never expects it to work), but the waitress waves him off. “Everything on the house for Captain America and the Dark Avenger,” she says, smiling.

The Dark Avenger. Apparently the TV networks have come up with their own name for the Winter Soldier. 

The milkshakes come in to-go cups, which is good, because they’re both too amped up to sit still. They set off through the ruined streets again. Steve’s seen ruined cities in his time, but he would expect it to feel different somehow when it’s his own New York – but it’s not really his New York, it feels like a different city, and it’s deeply strange when he catches a glimpse of the Empire State Building and remembers that this is New York after all. 

Steve’s usually fine with silence. But right now he’s so desperate to talk, it’s like he’s been wandering in the desert and he’s found an oasis. Here’s the only other person in the world for whom the forties didn’t happen sixty years ago and he’s too busy stirring his whipped cream into his milkshake to chat. 

He opens a little slit in his mask, just big enough for the straw to fit through, and begins to drink. His eyes narrow, like a happy cat’s. He’s enjoying his milkshake. 

“Natasha said you were at Stalingrad,” Steve blurts. It seems like a good place to start. Steve’s proud of the stuff his boys accomplished during the war, of course, but he knows that their missions were kid stuff compared to Stalingrad. 

The Winter Soldier doesn’t answer right away. Then he says – and he sounds kind of angry, but Steve’s worked with a few Soviet partisans in his time, and he knows this is just how they are – “I got hit on the head. I don’t remember.” 

“Shit,” says Steve. It takes a moment for this to really sink in. The Winter Soldier doesn’t remember Stalingrad. The only other frozen World War II soldier doesn’t – 

Steve’s hand stops working. He drops his milkshake. “Shit!” 

The Winter Soldier looks at the dropped milkshake, and looks at Steve, and holds out his own milkshake. “It’s okay,” he says. 

Steve shakes his head. He hunches his shoulders and marches onward and wishes this stupid gaudy uniform had better pockets so he could shove his hands in them. 

The Winter Soldier lengthens his stride to match Steve’s steps. Steve would have to jog to get away from him and he can’t bring himself to do something so obvious and rude. 

“It’s okay,” the Winter Soldier says again. “We can get you another.” 

He thinks Steve is upset about the milkshake. Steve wants to laugh and scream and cry. 

The Winter Soldier slings an arm around his shoulder, and Steve shivers right down his spine. That movement, right down to the little squeeze at the end, reminds him so much of – 

“Hey,” says the Winter Soldier. He gives Steve a little shake, and that makes it worse. “Hey. Don’t cry.”

“Sorry,” Steve says. He tries to explain. “I just defrosted last week, and…” 

“Moscow doesn’t believe in tears, buddy,” the Winter Soldier says, not unkindly. “I bet SHIELD doesn’t either.” 

It does help. Steve wipes away his tears and summons a wobbly smile. “You speak really good English,” he says, to change the subject mostly, but also because it’s true. 

But the Winter Soldier doesn’t answer again. His arm slips from around Steve’s shoulder. He hooks one thumb in his belt. 

Natasha speaks good English, too: crisp, idiomatic. Steve wonders if the Winter Soldier went through a training regime like Natasha’s. A parallel program for boys, a whole academy full of little winter soldiers, and all the others died on the Eastern Front…

He’s not mean enough to ask. The Winter Soldier may not remember that either, what with the knock on the head, and if he does it must hurt even worse than thinking about the Howling Commandos hurts Steve. At least most of them they got to live full lives before they died, even if Steve missed it. 

“We worked together.” The Soldier’s voice has that abrupt angry sound again. 

Steve’s heart gives a strange hopeful thump. “We did work with some Soviet partisans,” he says. It seems _so_ fucking unlikely, he knows he shouldn’t get his hopes up, but after all those folders marked _deceased – deceased – deceased_ , it would be so great if the Winter Soldier was someone he knew even a little bit. 

He’s flipping through images in his mind, like baseball cards, trying to match up the Soldier’s features with those long-ago partisans. Of course it’s hard to tell when he can only see half of the Soldier’s face, but Soldier doesn’t look much like any of them. If he looks like anyone it’s –

Suddenly Steve’s so angry he could spit. 

It’s not just fucking unlikely. It’s impossible. This isn’t a guy Steve worked with, an actual World War II soldier. This is another scheme of Fury’s. Fury’s found a guy who looks like Bucky and thrown him at Steve, like throwing a bone to a dog. 

And he’s killing two birds with one stone, throwing a bone to Natasha, too. Dressing the guy up to look like her hero. 

That’s low. That’s _low_. Even coming from the guy who plunked Steve in a fake forties hospital room right after he thawed out – that’s fucking cruel. 

Steve has speeded up. He is nearly running, and the guy who isn’t the Winter Soldier, who probably never came within spitting distance of World War II, is loping alongside. “No,” Steve says. “We never worked together.” 

“Yes,” the Winter Soldier – no – the Dark Avenger insists. He sounds frustrated as hell. “We did.” 

“How much is Fury paying you for this?” Steve explodes. 

They both stop running. They are standing in the middle of the rubble-strewn street. A man’s corpse is hanging out of the window of a bus that has been crumpled like an accordion. His red tie flutters obscenely in the wind. 

The Dark Avenger looks confused as hell. You’ve got to hand it to Fury: he can afford the very best. “What the hell?” 

“Tell Fury I’m tired of his sick fucking games,” Steve says. “Tell him he can fucking go to hell.” 

Steve stalks off.

This time, the Dark Avenger doesn’t follow. Maybe he’s got some flicker of a conscience. Maybe he’s just now realizing that pretending like he knows the guy who has lost fucking everyone is a fucking awful thing to do. 

Steve catches sight of him briefly, reflected in a rear view mirror that sticks out crazily from a twisted scrap heap of a car. The mirror is unblemished. The Dark Avenger stands stock still. He looks lost and alone in that empty street. The wind lifts his hair, so it brushes across his face. 

Steve nearly turns back.

He dives down a side street, instead. He never even wants to look at that guy again. He never wants to see anyone ever again. He wishes he were still frozen at the bottom of the fucking ocean.

He gets out his weird flat phone and pokes out a message asking Natasha for directions to the shawarma place, instead. Fury fucked her over, too, with this fake Winter Soldier. That gives them a bond.

Unless – the thought makes Steve stop in the middle of the street. 

Unless she was in on it from the start. 

But the message is already sent, and two seconds later Natasha replies with directions. And Steve’s really hungry. He feels hollow all through. 

When Steve arrives at the shawarma place, only Thor is still eating. The rest of the Avengers are picking at their fries, listening tolerantly as Tony boasts about his plans to rebuild his tower. “We can call it Avengers Tower,” he says. “We can all live together. A floor for each of us. Won’t that be great?” 

He’s looking around the table, bright-eyed. The others get real interested in their shawarma. They’ve probably all got lives to get back to and no interest in moving into his Tower. 

Steve meets Tony’s eyes squarely. He forces a smile. Steve’s got to get the fuck away from SHIELD and he’s going to need allies. 

“That sounds great, Tony,” Steve says. “Count me in.”


End file.
